Publisher Information:
Washington:
U.S. House of Representatives,
1882.

47th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 90. 3pp, 27 folding sheets of architectural plans. Removed from the Serial Set and bound in cloth. Some edge chipping to the text and fold separations on the sheets, overall very good. The history of Fort Thornburgh began with the removal of the Ute Indians in Colorado to Utah following the hostilities of 1879. Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln decided to construct a fort to hold the Utes on the reservation and to quiet any potential hostilities between the Indians and the white population. A final site for the site was selected in the spring of 1882 about 6.5 miles northwest of present day Vernal, Utah. Secretary of War Lincoln proposed an elaborate $84,000 fort consisting of thirty-two brick and frame buildings to house two companies of cavalry and two of infantry. This document is the proposal with elevations, sections, foundation plans, and floor plans for the major buildings, the largest 22 by 18 inches, most smaller. Plans include the post headquarters, officers' quarters, guard house, stables, and many more. The active army seems to have been unimpressed by the proposal. Gen. W. T. Sherman commented in his letter of transmittal, "The necessity for this post was forced on the War Department by the removal of the Utes from Colorado to Utah, but as this is their last ditch, the present Fort Thornburgh will have some chance of permanency. At all events, troops must be maintained there or thereabouts, and cannot exist without shelter." Sherman was wrong about permanency. Congress appropriated but $1,500 for the fort in 1883 and what there was of Fort Thornburgh was officially abandoned sometime during the winter of 1883 or spring of 1884. What remains is this interesting presentation of military architecture never realized.